Natural Resource Management

Natural resources can drive corruption and corruption can be a feature of resource management. Learn about the risks and potential strategies to address them.

Natural resources often provide fertile ground for corruption. Since many partner countries in development cooperation are richly endowed with natural resources, these contexts pose special challenges for donor support. Corruption risks cut across resource sectors – from oil and minerals to forests and fisheries. This U4 theme explores these issues to inform donor practice in resource-rich contexts.

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Stealing Africa. How much profit is fair? (by Why Poverty)

See how Zambian efforts to leverage development through copper exports are progressing against a background of past grand corruption cases and illicit financial flows. The video starts in a Swiss village.

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Stealing Africa. How much profit is fair? (by Why Poverty)

See how Zambian efforts to leverage development through copper exports are progressing against a background of past grand corruption cases and illicit financial flows. The video starts in a Swiss village.

Recommended Reading

The governments of resource rich states have several options for how to allocate oil and mineral revenues, including the direct distribution of revenues to their citizens. This paper discusses the political feasibility and political implications of such cash transfers in the specific context of resource-rich states. Identifying the contexts in which this policy is mostly likely to emerge, and understanding the potential governance risks and benefits, will help policymakers consider the desirability of cash transfers as an allocation choice.

This DIE discussion paper shows that sub-Saharan African countries collected only relatively low tax revenues from the extractive sector during the period of high mineral and energy commodity prices from 2003 to 2008. The author argues that corruption and patronage in the granting of concessions and in tax administration caused low implicit tax rates. Poor conditions also impeded investments in downstream processing and additional production. As a consequence, sales revenues and hence the tax base were relatively lower then, for example, Australia.